“Summer ends and we wonder where we are…
…It’s just that time of year when we push ourselves ahead,
We push ourselves ahead.”

I’ve been listening to a lot of Dar Williams recently. Not sure why, because my taste in music has definitely veered more to pop than to folk in recent years, but it this time of personal challenge, Dar’s familiar music has felt like the warm hug of an old friend. Or it could be that I’ve been missing the friend that introduced me to Dar something fierce recently. Her life just changed in a big way and I’m sad i’m not there to see more of it.

So where am I at the end of the summer? Well, better than I was at the begining of the summer. I’m feeling a lot better and I feel like my asthma is a lot more under control. After many, many doctors visits, we determined that I was having a severe allergic reaction, thanks to some lovely street work in my neighborhood. Fun right? Well, the street work is over, and thanks to an unseasonably cool summer, I’m having more good days than bad days at this point. Which is a relief!

I’m looking forward to getting back into training, with hopefully, the Dopey challenge in January as the end goal. I have to admit, after so much time off running I’m worried about gearing up for 48 miles, and I’ve sort of thought about backing out. But at this point, I think I need to give it a go. I have a lot of money sunk into it (truth) and I feel like it would be a good motivator. But I’m scared! Closer on the horizon, I’m planning to do the Baltimore marathon relay with Noel and others. I’ve never run in the Baltimore marathon (more scary truth), so I”m excited about that!

So what have I been doing with all of my free time–other than sitting around and being depressed. Nails and television my friends. If anyone follows me on instagram, I’ve gotten pretty deep into nails recently. Okay, that’s a lie, I’ve been into doing my own nails since I discovered the magical Vinylux line last year, but now with all of this extra time on my hands, it has gotten worse! Or better, from my perspective. I’m in love with the Whimsical by Pam line of glitters. So much fun. And some are Disney themed, so, so dangerous.

I’ve also been loving some tv lately, including True Detective, Outlander and the Leftovers (so messed up, but SO GOOD).

This is a post that I’ve really struggled with writing. For whatever reason, blogging has become less a part of my life over the past year. But I still appreciate my blog, and everything I have gain through blogging, and hopefully, in a way, this post will be therapeutic for me.

Four weeks ago Saturday, I went to my normal Saturday spin class. I hadn’t been to spin in about a month between a trip to Germany and Delaware and I had maybe a little bit too much wine on Friday night, so I was expecting the class to be a little rough. But I also thought it would be a good “wake up” to help me get back into exercise after all of that travel, and before Dopey training started in earnest. But very soon after the class started, it was clear something was very wrong. I couldn’t breathe. I wished I had my rescue inhaler–I’m asthmatic–something I haven’t used while exercising since I started running seriously in 2011. I probably should have stopped the class, but I stuck it out. For the rest of the weekend I felt bad. So Monday morning I called my doctor, left work early, went and got the standard “Oh, you have whatever bug is going around, here’s an antibiotic, and take your secondary inhaler (I always do this when sick, to give my crappy lungs a boost)”. They also give me a nebulizer (a way to get inhaler medication if you are in a flare). Okay.

I don’t go to work on Tuesday because I’m feeling crappy. Go in on Wednesday, and have one of the scariest experiences of my life–a full asthma attack in my office. My rescue inhaler doesn’t work. I cannot breathe. I leave work and head straight to the doctor. There they put me on steroids, and tell me if I get worse, I should go immediately to the ER. SCARY! Hospitals pretty much terrify me, so I definitely wanted to avoid that. So I went home. The steroids seem to work. Great, no ER!

We went to the beach that weekend, and I now know I did way too much and was totally in denial about my condition. I walked around town, went for a walk with my sister, and had worsening symptoms. Tightness and burning in my lungs. All the time. I can’t be awake for more than a few hours at a time. And I’m just exhausted. On Monday I call my doctor back, they can’t fit me in until Thursday. UGH. So I go. And she tells Noel and I that there is nothing she can do. That we should go to the ER. So we go. In 10 hours, I have every test they can think of, before determining that I have nothing “emergency” so I’m discharged and referred to a pulmonary specialist.

So I see the pulmonary specialist–she’s great, and takes this very, very seriously. She understands that my life has really been effected. I’m not able to physically go into the office (although my workplace has been fantastic with letting me telework, so I haven’t missed 2+ weeks of work). Her theory is something–a virus, or most likely, the terrible allergy season we have had here on the east coast this year–has thrown my body into full asthma flare. I’m now super sensitive to everything, and my baseline has been lowered–so things I can normally tolerate are making me very very sick. She explains that asthma is an autoimmune disease so when you are in flare, your body attacks everything.

And then the blow–she is going to order a lot of testing, and refer me to an allergist. But until the testing is done, and this is all figured out, I need to stay inside, sedentary, to try to let my lungs heal. We should have our house cleaned and rehome our cats. This is sort of a shock, but I understand–I need to get better, and my life is already disrupted.

So 10 days later–I’m still here. I’ve had my allergy testing done–and I’m literally allergic to everything. Our kitties are gone and it breaks my heart. I’m still only working half days, because I feel like I only have about 6 hours of awake time in me at a time. Waiting for answers, hoping that there will be some.

Through all of this, I’ve had a lot of time to think. And watch the World Cup–if there is any silver lining to any of this, I’ve never had the opportunity (and time) to so thoroughly enjoy the tournament before–and thank goodness for it, it has been a wonderful distraction. I feel like many of the things that define me–work, my running, my fitness, have been taken away from me. So who am I without these things? Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that question. Am I still me without the things that give me energy? I do know that I had taken my health for granted. That the maintenance medication I’ve been on most of my adult life would magically control my asthma, a serious medical condition, forever. Before this most people never even knew I had asthma. I think I would forget–I certainly know I had gotten sloppy about carrying my rescue inhaler!

I also know that I haven’t always been a picnic to be around through all of this. The steroids make me crazy and jittery, and give me terrible insomnia. And being cooped up in the house is hard. I’m not used to not doing things for myself. I have a go-go-go life that has been put on home. And I know I’m lashing out in not nice ways. Fortunately I have some wonderful people in my life and they have been incredibly supportive.

The uncertainty of the whole situation scares me. Will I ever be better again? Is this my new normal? Of course there are no clear but answers to any of these things. Only time will tell. I have tried to stay positive and tell myself that of course I will be better. Of course I will run again. But it is hard to turn off that little voice in my head that says that this has lasted so long, and it is my new normal.

I am a big believer in the power of positive thinking, and I have an Alex and Ani bracelet that I bought last fall in New Haven that has almost become my personal mantra–It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. This is my current marathon. For a while after I got sick, I didn’t wear any of my positive mantras, but now they are back on. I have to believe in myself, in the miraculous ability of the human body to heal. Keeping myself in the mental game is important. It’s not easy, and yes, I have meltdowns. But I have to believe.

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